The sad thing is, every single game company out there seems to believe microtransactions are the future, and players who complain about it just don't understand it yet. *sigh*

Well, besides the fact that it annoys you, do you think that they are incorrect in believing that microtransactions are the future?

Psychologically speaking, people are more willing to part with $1, ten times, than they are to part with $10, once. They hardly notice the former if you spread it out enough, whereas they might not ever spend the latter.

The problem is that microtransactions bring real-world prosperity into the in-game pecking order.

With a typical subscription (or free) game, your performance in the game world depends on your ability to play the game. Anyone can put in the time to learn it inside and out. Anyone can master the twitch-reflex UI. The only real-world influence is your network connection, and quite often buying a faster connection doesn't mean you'll have a faster point-to-point link to the game servers anyways.

Enter microtransactions. Now, the rich people in real life will always win in the game world too. It was bad enough with gold resellers, but at least it was possible to still play the game ignoring them. A fully realized RMT system puts a price tag on the best loot, and without forking out real cash, there's no way to get them.

The problem is that microtransactions bring real-world prosperity into the in-game pecking order.

The usual counter-argument from the pay-for-perks crowd is that microtransactions allow those who have more money than time to compete with those who have more time than money. Of course that argument falls apart when you factor in people who have both time and money (and also reminds me of Travian again, where you need to invest a lot of time and money to be a top player).

However the real advantage of microtransactions is that they allow you to lure people in with the promise of a "free game", and once they're hooked they're far more likely to pay. Ask those same people to pay up front and you'd find far fewer of them would give the game a chance. I guess this is also why some of the more sneaky pay-for-perks muds get so angry whenever people ask for a "pay for perks" option on listing sites (I think MudBytes is the only place that has such an option, and the muds I'm thinking of don't list themselves here).

I remember reading the log of someone on a pay-for-perks game (that advertised itself as "free") who was literally banned by the owner after making it clear he had no intention of ever buying any perks.

However the real advantage of microtransactions is that they allow you to lure people in with the promise of a "free game", and once they're hooked they're far more likely to pay. Ask those same people to pay up front and you'd find far fewer of them would give the game a chance.

The real advantage of microtransactions is nothing to do with luring in players and all about allowing players to spend up to the amount they choose to. If you have a subscription at $15 a month for example then you are losing revenue from potential players who might otherwise choose to pay only a few dollars a month, and at the other end of the scale from players who would willingly pay much more than $15 a month. I've also played subscription games where they don't mention the monthly fee until you've played the free trial, so that argument can apply regardless of charging model.

The real advantage of microtransactions is nothing to do with luring in players and all about allowing players to spend up to the amount they choose to.

I can see that being an advantage too, but if luring people in with the promise of a free game isn't an advantage, why do the big pay-for-perks muds shout so loudly about being "free", go to great lengths to obfuscate their prices, and threaten withdrawing their paid advertising whenever people propose adding a "pay-for-perks" option to the mud listings? If allowing people to spend what they choose were really the main advantage, surely those pay-for-perks muds would jump at any chance possible to advertise their payment model?

If you have a subscription at $15 a month for example then you are losing revenue from potential players who might otherwise choose to pay only a few dollars a month, and at the other end of the scale from players who would willingly pay much more than $15 a month.

But that advantage is also countered by the perception of unfairness - "pay to play" puts people on equal footing, but "the more you pay the better you play" isn't going to sound anywhere near as appealing to competitive gamers. Tell your players that they don't have to pay if they don't want to and many will think "Cool!". Tell them that the top players spent ten thousand dollars to get where they are, and suddenly it's not so cool after all.

I've also played subscription games where they don't mention the monthly fee until you've played the free trial, so that argument can apply regardless of charging model.

A fair point, but there's still a distinct disadvantage for pay-to-play muds - the players reach a point where they're effectively forced to pay (or get off the pot). With pay-for-perks it's less obtrusive, relying on the carrot rather than the stick, so the player can continue to play for free until they're hooked enough to want to pay.

By "rich" people, do you mean the ones who can afford to slap down those $1 bills? Possibly several of them a week? Or the mega-rich like me, who carry around big bills like $10 ones. ;-)

*smile*

If only that were the case. I just look at the asian item-mall games, where the average player spends $30 a month, and the guys trying to compete spend hundreds, and think how nice it is to see Mommy's credit card topping the guild ranking charts.

The real advantage of microtransactions is nothing to do with luring in players and all about allowing players to spend up to the amount they choose to.

Sort-of true. It really depends on your goals in playing the game. If you want to just putter around and enjoy playing, then yes… being able to play for free and only spend a few dollars on perks is nice. If you want to compete and be in one of the top guilds, those optional payments become mandatory.

In a subscription based game, everyone pays the same entry fee. You put in however much time you want, or however much time you need to in order to be on a par with your guildmates. Now, add microtransactions into the equation, and suddenly your guildmates with money are leapfrogging ahead and pushing to cut the dead weight (you, the guy who doesn't want to spend $20 a week on exp potions, top tier ammo, etc).

Heck, if charging money for in-game things is such a great idea… why not take it a step further?

The problem is that microtransactions bring real-world prosperity into the in-game pecking order.

With a typical subscription (or free) game, your performance in the game world depends on your ability to play the game. Anyone can put in the time to learn it inside and out. Anyone can master the twitch-reflex UI. The only real-world influence is your network connection, and quite often buying a faster connection doesn't mean you'll have a faster point-to-point link to the game servers anyways.

Enter microtransactions. Now, the rich people in real life will always win in the game world too. It was bad enough with gold resellers, but at least it was possible to still play the game ignoring them. A fully realized RMT system puts a price tag on the best loot, and without forking out real cash, there's no way to get them.

That's all well and good; it answers the question of why it annoys you. (Incidentally, I find many of these same features annoying as well.) But I didn't ask why it annoys you. :wink: I asked why you said it's not viable as a business model.

KaVir said:

I can see that being an advantage too, but if luring people in with the promise of a free game isn't an advantage, why do the big pay-for-perks muds shout so loudly about being "free", go to great lengths to obfuscate their prices, and threaten withdrawing their paid advertising whenever people propose adding a "pay-for-perks" option to the mud listings?

I think that these MUDs are relatively unusual in the efforts they go to to hide the microtransactions. The vast majority of games I've seen – outside the MUD world – make it pretty clear that there are perks you get if you pay, while still being a nominally free game to play.

I think that MUDs in particular might make so much noise about being free because of the very strong stigma against any sort of money in the MUD world. I don't think it has much to do with microtransactions in and of themselves, because the bigger picture of microtransaction games doesn't behave this way.

KaVir said:

Tell them that the top players spent ten thousand dollars to get where they are, and suddenly it's not so cool after all.

Out of curiosity, is the $10k figure realistic, or just something you made up? I can kind of picture $1k but $10k seems like quite a bit of money…

The real advantage of microtransactions is nothing to do with luring in players and all about allowing players to spend up to the amount they choose to.

I can see that being an advantage too, but if luring people in with the promise of a free game isn't an advantage,…

That may or may not be an advantage depending on how you market your game, but it's certainly not the real advantage. We chose a microtransaction model over a subscription one for our commercial game because we felt that model would make us more money in the long run. It had nothing to do with luring in players before charging them. You don't have to take my word for it.

If you have a subscription at $15 a month for example then you are losing revenue from potential players who might otherwise choose to pay only a few dollars a month, and at the other end of the scale from players who would willingly pay much more than $15 a month.

But that advantage is also countered by the perception of unfairness - "pay to play" puts people on equal footing, but "the more you pay the better you play" isn't going to sound anywhere near as appealing to competitive gamers. Tell your players that they don't have to pay if they don't want to and many will think "Cool!". Tell them that the top players spent ten thousand dollars to get where they are, and suddenly it's not so cool after all.

Obviously that depends on your design as to what constitutes a "top player". Certainly people who spend more on the game are going to get more out of it, but if you're talking about competitive gameplay then it doesn't necessarily follow that the highest spenders are going to be the top players.

Along these lines, LostGarden has an interesting article on the Flash game ecosystem, and that article covers a fair bit of how people currently unsuccessfully try to, do, and should try to make money.

I think that MUDs in particular might make so much noise about being free because of the very strong stigma against any sort of money in the MUD world.

I think you might be on to something there, but perhaps it's not necessarily stigma - not these days at least - but rather the fact that they're competing against truly free games of the same sort of calibre, and often trying to draw players from those free games. This doesn't seem to be so much the case for other styles of microtransaction games that I've seen, where the majority of the genre follows the same sort of payment model - do browser games and such have the same sort of divide? It's not something I've really looked into.

David Haley said:

Out of curiosity, is the $10k figure realistic, or just something you made up? I can kind of picture $1k but $10k seems like quite a bit of money…

I read about it on a forum so I can't vouch for its authenticity, but this is the same mud that sold godhood (admin positions) for $3000 each. The post I took the information from stated "It wasn't uncommon for veterans to have spent in upwards of a thousand dollars, sometimes several thousand. There were a couple people that spent a good ten thousand dollars on the game".

I read about it on a forum so I can't vouch for its authenticity, but this is the same mud that sold godhood (admin positions) for $3000 each.

Yeah. Must be nice to be able to (in apparently a money generating business) to get contract labor that pays you to do admin duties. Of course, that's just the bitter part of being an admin. The sweet part, as the post implies, is handing out slays to players. So that's what 3,000 dollars on that mud gets you.

I think that these MUDs are relatively unusual in the efforts they go to to hide the microtransactions. The vast majority of games I've seen – outside the MUD world – make it pretty clear that there are perks you get if you pay, while still being a nominally free game to play.

I think that it might be unusual in the world of not-mud games, I dunno muchabout such stuff. But since I've been showing up on muds, I've noticed thereseems to be a tradition of anti-commercial spirit. Not trying to sayanything about the motives of folks in this thread, just saying that ingeneral there seems to be a kind of distrust and resentment of commercialmud enterprises.

Assuming that's true (no need to rub my nose in the player list ofcommercial muds, I know they have lots of players. I'm talking aboutthe mudding communities I know), and that commercial muds are trying to lure new players from communities with distrust of commercial muds,it sort of makes sense that they use a soft-focus lens on their paystructure in their ads.

Ironically, this might *seem* like exactly the wrong thing to do: handledistrust by being deceptive. To people whose currency is their word, it'sa preposterous strategy. To someone watching an instrument panel thatruns on money, though, my guess is that it's simply something that works.

Why it works, we could spend a dozen pages on. But apparently it does.These people are in business. I don't begrudge them their success…indeed I view commercial mudding as a really good thing.

What gets my goat is the pretense of good faith. I remember one of thelast threads I participated on in TMS (indeed a thread that contributedto my banishment, as I recall) had these desperate, passionate argumentsfor listing rules that concealed pay structures. It made no sense tome then, it makes no sense to me now, except as an obfuscation intendedto serve the lister, not the seeker. That's what gets me. Mud listingsthat purport to be for the searcher, but are in fact paid advertising,and profiting shills who use words designed not to enlighten discussionbut to confuse it in order to better profit.

I don't care for TMC's sell-out in their listings, I'm not happy (norsurprised) that TMS still hasn't instituted the clarifications theyagreed with 2 years ago. That stuff bugs me, but what *really* drives me up the wall is the muds and admins themselves who look you in the eyeand say "What do you mean? Of course it's free. The ad didn't lie.You're here right now talking to me. You just need to pay $1 to proceed further."

This is perhaps part of where the loathing for microtransactionscomes from for some folks (and again, not tryin to assign specificthingies to specific peeps), that it's been done in this communityin such crummy and insulting ways.

What gets my goat is the pretense of good faith. I remember one of the last threads I participated on in TMS (indeed a thread that contributed to my banishment, as I recall) had these desperate, passionate arguments for listing rules that concealed pay structures. It made no sense to me then, it makes no sense to me now, except as an obfuscation intended to serve the lister, not the seeker. That's what gets me. Mud listings that purport to be for the searcher, but are in fact paid advertising, and profiting shills who use words designed not to enlighten discussion but to confuse it in order to better profit.

I personally don't really like the term pay for perks, but that's just because of how the phrase sounds to me rather than any intent to conceal our charging model. I'd prefer the term microtransactions but I'd still list our game on TMS/TMC if they had a pay for perks or whatever else category. We're listed here for example under the pay for perks category and I like to think that we are up front about our charging model on our website and in game.

There is a fair bit of negative stereotyping about microtransactions in the MUD community and there's been a few examples of that in this thread, so I can understand in part why some games would want to keep that information off MUD listing sites. However I think attitudes are changing as players become more familiar with the model and more games begin to use these kinds of systems. I don't personally feel that it's to our disadvantage not to conceal our charging model, but time will tell of course.

In a subscription based game, everyone pays the same entry fee. You put in however much time you want, or however much time you need to in order to be on a par with your guildmates. Now, add microtransactions into the equation, and suddenly your guildmates with money are leapfrogging ahead and pushing to cut the dead weight (you, the guy who doesn't want to spend $20 a week on exp potions, top tier ammo, etc).

You've said this twice now, and I don't see how it follows. In a subscription game the only person able to put in how much time they want, or need to, is the one with copious amounts of free time able to prioritize the game first. How is this any different from a microtransactions game where the person able to buy the most benefits is the one with the most money? Because time is 'free'? I understand that, in practical terms, a subscription game is better for someone with less money – a student say, or someone with a part-time job and no other commitments – but time is precious. I'm not one to laud money over everything else, but I don't think it's as black and white as it appears.

In a subscription based game, everyone pays the same entry fee. You put in however much time you want, or however much time you need to in order to be on a par with your guildmates. Now, add microtransactions into the equation, and suddenly your guildmates with money are leapfrogging ahead and pushing to cut the dead weight (you, the guy who doesn't want to spend $20 a week on exp potions, top tier ammo, etc).

You've said this twice now, and I don't see how it follows. In a subscription game the only person able to put in how much time they want, or need to, is the one with copious amounts of free time able to prioritize the game first. How is this any different from a microtransactions game where the person able to buy the most benefits is the one with the most money? Because time is 'free'? I understand that, in practical terms, a subscription game is better for someone with less money – a student say, or someone with a part-time job and no other commitments – but time is precious. I'm not one to laud money over everything else, but I don't think it's as black and white as it appears.

I somewhat agree with this analysis. However, I think we should keep in mind that it really depends on what the microtransactions are actually for. There's a big difference between 2 bucks for something cosmetic and 3000 bucks to become a "god."

In a subscription based game, everyone pays the same entry fee. You put in however much time you want, or however much time you need to in order to be on a par with your guildmates. Now, add microtransactions into the equation, and suddenly your guildmates with money are leapfrogging ahead and pushing to cut the dead weight (you, the guy who doesn't want to spend $20 a week on exp potions, top tier ammo, etc).

You've said this twice now, and I don't see how it follows. In a subscription game the only person able to put in how much time they want, or need to, is the one with copious amounts of free time able to prioritize the game first. How is this any different from a microtransactions game where the person able to buy the most benefits is the one with the most money? Because time is 'free'? I understand that, in practical terms, a subscription game is better for someone with less money – a student say, or someone with a part-time job and no other commitments – but time is precious. I'm not one to laud money over everything else, but I don't think it's as black and white as it appears.

Everyone has the same amount of time available to them… they may not be able to use as much of it to play the game as they'd like, and certainly not as much as others, but it IS a finite resource. On any given day, I know nobody, no matter how much free time they have, will be able to put in more than 24 hours. Typically, the "serious" gamer might put in 8 hours a day.

Money, on the other hand, is entirely freeform. There is no upper bound on how much someone can put in, and no way for those without to compete against those with. If the game were to allow you to buy experience at $1 per 100xp, there are people who could level to max in an instant. There's no way to compete with that unless you also put forth the same kind of expenditure.

It's also a diminishment of value with respect to the game itself. When time is the commodity, the player who learns the game and pays attention will be able to make the most of the time they put in. A good player will progress much faster in the same amount of time, than one who is bumbling along. That isn't true with money. It takes no particular skill to punch in a credit card number and click the "buy 1337 g3arZ" button. Once equipped with said gear, it takes no great skill to one-shot mobs and wade through the levels. Hence the term "ebay character", meaning someone who raced to max-level (or bought the character on ebay, pre-leveled) without learning how to play it.

I don't doubt it's a good and viable model for the ones running the game. Obviously, if microtransactions didn't bring in MORE revenue than the subscription model, nobody would be switching to it. I don't even think it's an inherently evil model… but many of the implementations of it are. For me, the keys are… can people who don't want to fork out cash still compete, and is every item in the game obtainable without purchase? If so, then paying money is just a time-saver, and that's fine with me. If not, it's a way to reward the wealthy and keep the poor miserable (and I use the word intentionally).

Everyone has the same amount of time available to them… they may not be able to use as much of it to play the game as they'd like, and certainly not as much as others, but it IS a finite resource. On any given day, I know nobody, no matter how much free time they have, will be able to put in more than 24 hours. Typically, the "serious" gamer might put in 8 hours a day.

Sorry, but this is a kind of meaningless argument. The unemployed will probably have more free time than those working 60-hour weeks. Students typically have more free time. People working 40 hours a week typically have more free time than those working 60. People without children typically have more free time than those with children. I think the point is clear now…

The point isn't how much time we have allotted in a 24-hour day: the point is how much free time we have that we can devote to things like games. The "serious" gamer might put in 8 hours a day, whereas people who have "serious" jobs might not have time to play. That we all have 24 hours is a truism that holds trivially and doesn't really add anything.

quixadhal said:

Money, on the other hand, is entirely freeform. There is no upper bound on how much someone can put in, and no way for those without to compete against those with.

I will not be able to compete with somebody who can afford to put in eight hours a day playing a game until I retire in a "few" years – at least not if I want to keep my job, apartment, etc. Therefore the above is also, unfortunately, a rather silly statement to make. No resource is "entirely freeform" – in fact, least of all money, perhaps, except for the truly super-rich who don't need to actually go earn it every day.

The better argument you could make is that time is a resource that everybody could make, to some extent (even if it means sacrificing things like, I dunno, one's employment) whereas not everybody can necessarily get a job that allows them to spend thousands of dollars a month on games.

quixadhal said:

I don't even think it's an inherently evil model… but many of the implementations of it are.

Then vote with your wallet and play elsewhere, or if you don't have a wallet to vote with, then – well, wait, that's not really the group of people that these people care about. :wink: Seriously though: if you don't like it, don't p(l)ay it.

You almost make it sound like a moral obligation of sorts that every game developer give equal opportunity to every kind of customer – including the customers who aren't actually customers.

Look, having to pay money to get to certain features annoys me as well, but hey, they need to earn their bread and beer money just as much as you and I do.

I once had a trial copy of a piece of audio editing software that never expired. Rather, I was simply unable to save the files that I edited. This is how I think of most pay-for-perks games. Namely, that you are initially playing an extensive trial that exposes you to the majority of the game's content. Eventually you'll need to invest some money if you want the full experience.

It's somewhat foolish to argue that non-paying players should be able to compete with paying players easily. If they were, there would be little incentive for anyone to pay for most "perks" that are available for these games. Generally, these games are not free with a pay-to-play option, they are pay-to-play with a free option. That may sound silly but it's an important difference (to me, at least).

It's somewhat foolish to argue that non-paying players should be able to compete with paying players easily.

If the game advertises itself as "free" then I don't think it's at all unreasonable for non-paying players to expect to be able to compete with paying players (although how "easily" is a matter of debate). If you're running a competitive game, and players cannot compete without paying, then IMO it's not really "free" - it's a pay-to-play game with a trial mode, and I don't consider that the same thing.

Furthermore, it's not uncommon for pay-for-perks to be implemented as "the more you pay the better you play". If you combine that with clear advantages over the competition you end up with a situation where the biggest spenders always win.

When I played Travian they had perks such as +25% resource production (one for each of the four resource types), +10% attack and +10% defence. They also had a 'Plus' mode which gave a range of useful utility options that made playing easier without giving you any mechanical advantage. Each of these bonuses lasted for a week, and you couldn't activate them multiple times, so it effectively became a sort of "pay-to-play" mode with a (fairly low) cap on how much you could spend - all six bonuses cost around 69p per week, or 1.09 if you also wanted Plus. I thought that was fine - you could buy the bonuses you wanted when you wanted, but there was a cap on what you could spend so that the big spenders didn't have an unfair advantage.

However they also introduced two further perks - an NPC merchant (allowing you to convert resources) and "instant build" option, each of which cost in-game currency every time you used them. These I didn't like, because they turned it into a financial arms race, so that the big spenders would always shoot ahead.

But it could have been worse. Despite the perks, non-paying players could compete if they were good (although not with paying players of their own calibre). If Travian had introduced stacking on the weekly bonuses (so that you could buy the attack bonus 10 times to get +100%, etc) then non-paying players simply wouldn't have stood a chance.

If non-paying players cannot compete with paying players, and it's a competitive game, you're going to find many of those non-paying players don't bother hanging around. And without them, you may not have enough total players for the paying players to hang around either.

If they were, there would be little incentive for anyone to pay for most "perks" that are available for these games.

There are plenty of examples of games selling perks that aren't required to compete. The most obvious example is cosmetic perks, but it's certainly possible to sell advantages without destroying the non-paying players chances of competing.

Note that I'm not opposed to pay-for-perks. I dislike certain specific pay-for-perks muds for being licence violators and/or deliberately trying to mislead players about their payment model - but I don't object to the payment model itself.

However the types of perks sold can make a big difference on the gameplay. I don't mind cosmetic or minor perks, but personally I would never play a game where you need to pay large amounts of money to unlock the best skills and weapons.

Using money to compensate for time isn't so bad, IMO. But most such implementations primarily reward the people who have both time and money.